Biography
James Grant—often identified as Dr. James Earl Grant—was a civil rights organizer and anti–Vietnam War activist active in North Carolina during a period of heightened surveillance and prosecution of Black political organizing. His public profile and organizing work made him a significant figure in local struggles over racial justice and political representation.
He was one of the “Charlotte Three,” arrested in late 1971 and convicted in 1972 for the 1968 arson at Lazy B Stables. Grant received the harshest sentence of the three—25 years—and his imprisonment became a focal point for clemency efforts and broader arguments about political prosecution, including advocacy from national and international human-rights observers such as Amnesty International. After appeals failed (including to the Supreme Court of the United States), Governor Hunt commuted the sentences in 1979; Grant was released on parole and remained connected to social-justice work afterward.
